When someone shares with you something of value, you have an obligation to share it with others.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Mix-up and a dust-up at the people’s crematorium
It’s another gruesome morality tale of modern China.
For the past two years, staff at a public crematorium in a northeastern province have given grieving families urns filled with other people’s ashes to make their job easier.
It’s another gruesome morality tale of modern China.
For the past two years, staff at a public crematorium in a northeastern province have given grieving families urns filled with other people’s ashes to make their job easier.
Now they have been found out - after suspicious relatives of an elderly man discovered two big baskets full of ashes and forced a confession from a young employee. Within hours, some of the thousands in the city of Tieling who have been worshipping the wrong remains took to the streets in fury.
Nearly 1,000 protesters descended on the local government headquarters, and people in the crowd gave the crematorium’s director such a beating he needed hospital treatment. At least one man was detained after the crowd clashed with hundreds of riot police on Wednesday, said one protester, who would not give his name.
A spokesman for the district civil affairs bureau tried to heap the blame on the junior crematorium employee and said only one family had received the wrong ashes, and then only by mistake. But yesterday, authorities in Tieling, and some of the families affected, contradicted this account, saying as many as 2,800 families had been given the wrong remains.
The scandal at the Qinghe district funeral home in the city in Liaoning province came to light when the family of 82-year-old Li Eshan became suspicious after receiving cold ashes after his funeral on Sunday, the Southern Metropolis News reported. Relatives were shocked when they discovered his corpse in another room - and the two baskets of ashes.
The family confronted the young crematorium worker and beat him after he confessed that he had been “taught by senior staff” to give strangers’ ashes to families to save time. The family learned that since the young employee had started working there in 2007, most families had received substitute ashes.
More than 2,800 families who had had loved ones cremated there since 2007 had registered with the local government for compensation, the Southern Metropolis News reported.
The bureau spokesman would not say whether they were eligible for compensation. He said the young worker had been detained and police were investigating.
One of those affected said: “It’s a nightmare to know that what’s inside the tiny box isn’t my parent but a stranger’s ashes. I ... don’t know where my parent’s remains are.”
Another, addressing his comments to the funeral home staff, said: “How can you do this? Would you treat your own father the same way?”
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Mix-up and a dust-up at the people’s crematorium
Fiona Tam
16 October 2009
It’s another gruesome morality tale of modern China.
For the past two years, staff at a public crematorium in a northeastern province have given grieving families urns filled with other people’s ashes to make their job easier.
Now they have been found out - after suspicious relatives of an elderly man discovered two big baskets full of ashes and forced a confession from a young employee. Within hours, some of the thousands in the city of Tieling who have been worshipping the wrong remains took to the streets in fury.
Nearly 1,000 protesters descended on the local government headquarters, and people in the crowd gave the crematorium’s director such a beating he needed hospital treatment. At least one man was detained after the crowd clashed with hundreds of riot police on Wednesday, said one protester, who would not give his name.
A spokesman for the district civil affairs bureau tried to heap the blame on the junior crematorium employee and said only one family had received the wrong ashes, and then only by mistake. But yesterday, authorities in Tieling, and some of the families affected, contradicted this account, saying as many as 2,800 families had been given the wrong remains.
The scandal at the Qinghe district funeral home in the city in Liaoning province came to light when the family of 82-year-old Li Eshan became suspicious after receiving cold ashes after his funeral on Sunday, the Southern Metropolis News reported. Relatives were shocked when they discovered his corpse in another room - and the two baskets of ashes.
The family confronted the young crematorium worker and beat him after he confessed that he had been “taught by senior staff” to give strangers’ ashes to families to save time. The family learned that since the young employee had started working there in 2007, most families had received substitute ashes.
More than 2,800 families who had had loved ones cremated there since 2007 had registered with the local government for compensation, the Southern Metropolis News reported.
The bureau spokesman would not say whether they were eligible for compensation. He said the young worker had been detained and police were investigating.
One of those affected said: “It’s a nightmare to know that what’s inside the tiny box isn’t my parent but a stranger’s ashes. I ... don’t know where my parent’s remains are.”
Another, addressing his comments to the funeral home staff, said: “How can you do this? Would you treat your own father the same way?”
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